Black Friday set to turn into a good Friday for Dixons Carphone when newly merged firm unveils maiden Christmas update

Dixons Carphone is set to announce in its maiden Christmas trading statement on Wednesday that sales at outlets of the newly formed group have risen.

The news follows a Black Friday shopping bonanza and the collapse of rival Phones4U in the autumn.

The group is expected to be one of the retailers to hail the shopping event on November 28 as a success, contributing to a 5 per cent like-for-like sales rise in its UK stores in the nine weeks to January 2.

Carphone Warehouse and Dixons merged last year

UK sales are expected to be up 5% over Christmas

The group was formed in August 2014 from a merger of Currys owner Dixons and mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse.

Analysts predict that sales in its other northern Europe businesses rose 3 per cent but fell 4.5 per cent in southern Europe.

Some retailers, such as Asda, Tesco, Amazon and Shop Direct, which owns online fashion stores Very and Littlewoods, as well as Woolworths.co.uk, hailed the day as a huge success.

But many others, such as John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Home Retail Group, which owns Argos, complained it encouraged discounting too early, when many retailers felt they could otherwise sell goods at full price in the run-up to Christmas.

The only big retailer to rise above the event was Next, which followed its long-held policy of not cutting prices before Christmas, but nonetheless announced higher profit expectations as sales rose.

There were signs last week that consumers piled on debt to pay for Black Friday deals.

Arbuthnot Banking Group said applications for loans were 14 times higher than on the day last year.

Black Friday started in the US as a result of deals between big retailers and electronics suppliers. But in-store scuffles led some MPs last week to call for it to be banned.